1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to the field of game calls, and particularly to the field of game calls in which an attractive sound is generated by manual or mechanical action.
2. Description of Prior Art
Game calls for producing sounds attractive to game can be broadly defined by two classes, one in which the game sound is produced by blowing through the call, and the other in which the game sound is produced by a vibration of a mechanical sounding element. Many game calls have been devised which apply a striker to a sounding surface to produce a game calling sound. These usually include the concept of moving a striker such as a dowel across a rough sounding surface, either manually or through some connecting mechanical means. Discontinuous movement of the striker on the rough surface causes a vibration. The roughened sounding members are normally a slab of slate. Draughon, U.S. Pat. No. 651,752; Saunders, U.S. Pat. No. 1,034,307; Walker, U.S. Pat. No. 2,643,483; and Tannehill, U.S. Pat. No. 2,958,157, all teach slate sounding members. These game calls all have as their object the production of a sound at the point of contact between the striker and the sounding surface which will be effective at attracting game. Many different structures have been devised towards this goal.
Piper, U.S. Pat. No. 4,003,159, discloses a game call wherein a rod-shaped striker member is moved across a unitary sounder plate made up of a carrier having a U-shaped cross section and a sounder board, to produce an attractive sound. Jacobs, U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,986, discloses a game call wherein the two sections are interfitted for compact carrying and protection from damage. A vibratory peg is separated from a sound block to use the call. The vibratory peg is positioned more or less perpendicular to the sounding board and the end of the peg is moved across the sounding board to produce a call attractive to a wild turkey. Grayson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,927,490, discloses a turkey call comprising a piece of chalk in combination with a portion of appalachian red cedar having a cylindrical amplifying recess therein, a flat surface and a slot between the flat surface and the amplifying recess. The chalk is the rough part of this device, used to contact the cedar portion to produce a turkey-attracting sound. Tannehill, U.S. Pat. No. 2,958,157, discloses a bird call including a vibratory peg which can be interfitted with a sound producing surface for compact storage. The peg is removed and drawn across a sound producing surface to generate the bird call. Wisor, U.S. Pat. No. 3,208,184, discloses a disc-like abrasive slate portion and a second annular slate portion mounted in a housing and spaced from the first. The house is rigid. One of the slates is for roughening the striker and the other is for independently producing a sound.
A second group of calls generates game-calling vibrations by mechanical means. Boatright, U.S. Pat. No. 2,606,401, discloses a device wherein a pivotally movable section contacts a slate member to produce a game calling sound. Walker, U.S. Pat. No. 2,643,483, discloses a game calling device wherein a knob is turned to rotate a slate disc over the ends of wooden pegs, to cause the disc to vibrate and produce a game calling sound. Orzetti, U.S. Pat. No. 3,716,943, discloses a hunting call wherein a dowel is fixed to one end of a cylindrical body, which interfits with another cylindrical body housing a disc of barium ferrite. By rotating the first cylindrical body, the peg is moved across the disc of barium ferrite to produce the sound of a lost turkey. Funk, U.S. Pat. No. 4,041,639, discloses a game call with a peg held in a resilient strip movable back and forth across the top of a box housing a sounding block. By moving the strip across the top of the box, the peg is moved across the sounding block to generate a game call.
The prior disclosures include numerous examples of a peg end structure applied endwise to a slate slab for producing a vibration at the area of contact. None of the foregoing disclosures attempts to use plural or cooperatively-resonant sounding board members as a means to affect the sound produced by a peg on an outer sounding board, or to cooperatively vibrate resiliently-mounted heavy elements. According to the present invention, two sounder plates are cooperatively mounted in a somewhat-flexible chassis at a space from one another, the vibration due to contact between the striker and one plate resonating the chassis and the other plate, and producing a particularly effective call including variations and lower frequency components that interest turkeys at virtually any season of the year.
The two sounder plates are spaced from one another and from a plastic housing having openings whereby vibrations of either sound plate produce acoustic vibrations in the ambient air. Preferably, the sound plates are glass discs, sandblasted for roughening, whereby the vibration of striker contact is comparable to that achieved with slate, but the plates are formed to closer dimensional and weight tolerances, and are relatively more flexible than slate.